Childhood...

When most people think about their childhood, they think of mostly happy thoughts, maybe some bad also.
They probably think back about fun times with their families and friends, mom cooking wholesome meals, helping with homework, giving hugs and kisses, dad teaching them to ride their bike, build a tree house, maybe how to play sports or fish...  When I think about my childhood, here are just a few things I remember... 
shopping for school clothes and standing in a public, very crowded dressing room with my mom while I tried on clothes and she yelled "HOW can you be wearing such a big size pants?!  You're almost as big as me!  Why are you so big? You GOTTA lose some weight!  Look at you!"... I remember looking down at someones feet in the dressing room beside us and thinking "When I come out of here, everyone is going to be looking at me and laughing at the nasty fat girl!" 
I remember coming into school late since we didn't have an alarm (you cant have an alarm without power) to wake us up, and walking to my class with dirty mismatched clothes, matted hair and a growling stomach and having a teacher stop me to tell me "We have your brother in the office... He says he's hungry, are you hungry too?"  Then being taken to the cafeteria for some food before going to my class to envy all the clean, well groomed and nicely dressed little boys and girls.  I would often dream about being them and how wonderful their lives must have been.
I remember my mother telling me that it was no wonder nobody wanted to be my friend- just look at me! Who would want to be friends with ME!  Besides being fat, I dressed like a bum.  Of course that was my fault... how, I'll never know.
I remember having to be woken up in the middle of the night to leave our house on several occasions because we were afraid my father was going to kill us, and I remember him and my uncle putting all of our cats and kittens into a garbage bag and beating them to death with crow bars... I didn't see this happen, but for some reason, my mother decided to tell us about it.  My youngest sister was less than 3, my brother was about 5 and I was around 6... Why she would decide to tell us that story about our dad- true or not- was completely inappropriate at those ages!
I remember having no electricity or heat, which also meant no hot water or phone, and having to burn our toys (at least my oldest sister who was about 13 or 14 at the time said it had to be done for heat), and having no food in the house.  I would go to the refrigerator over and over, as if by magic some food might appear.  I did find some cans of Slim Fast though.  That was a must! Don't wanna get fat!
I remember going to the nice, warm, comfortable house of my Christian grandparents less than a mile down the street to be fed.  My grandmother had made grilled cheese sandwiches with ham or some sort of meat inside, and I ate maybe 2 or 3 sandwiches.  Of course that was a lot for a little 6 year old girl to eat, but I didn't know when I was going to get another meal so I had to eat while I had the chance.  Then when I got home, I found out my bitch of an aunt had called my older sister, (who already despised me for having to stay home and babysit me while my mom worked) and told her that I ate 12 sandwiches. (This was one of the brief periods of times we had a phone) I already was made fun of for being fat and now my mom and sister got to laugh in my face and tell me how disgusting I was for eating.
Having my own kids, I can't even imagine treating them that way.  I would never put my child down, especially for something that was my fault.  Like for instance, you may be wondering "If you had no food, how were you fat?"  That's actually very interesting, and I wondered that my entire life.  Since our house caught on fire, supposedly all of our photos were lost.  I didn't even think there were any photos of me in existence until years later.  The real funny thing is, I was not fat as a young child.  Not even chubby.  But the older I got, the bigger I got.  Of course I never knew I wasn't fat- I was always told I was!  So I when I did get the chance to eat, I gorged. 
Maybe me being fat was the reason my mom kicked me and knocked me down in the gravel driveway to keep from getting in a picture with my 'precious' little sister- she was good enough to take pictures of, she wasn't fat and nasty like I was.  My brother was just as precious, being the only boy.  My older sister was'nt skinny, but for some strange reason, she was never made fun of.  She did get beat though, worse than the rest of us.  And my mom was fat herself so she had no room what so ever to call anyone else fat.
So many fond memories, I don't know where to end this...
Stay tuned for my fun filled holiday memories!